Pierpont's First Deal

In 1861 Pierpont paid $300 the equivalent of $7,500 today to avoid Conscription and then freed from service on the battlefield. He was approached by a Wheeler dealer named Simon Stevens who asked Pierpont for a loan to fund a lucrative deal to supply the US Army with Hall Carbine rifles. But his father Junius Morgan felt that Pierpont had hacked it rationally and recklessly In Junius's opinion Pierpont made money due to luck and not judgment If he had not found buyers the bank would have lost money and he would have been out of a job. A few days later Pierpont received an angry telegram from his bosses in New York who